Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1887-08-04
ROCK ISLAND, THURSDAY. AUGUST 4, 1887.
QUEENS OF THE RANCH.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT TELLS OF
THE WOMEN OF THE PLAINS.

A Rough and Sometimes Desperate Life
for the Fair Sex-How Pluck and Cour-
age Lead to Success-Keeping Board
ing House
Theodore Roosevelt, to whom his Dakota
ranch is an object of engrossing interest, says
that the ranch woman-the cattle queen, as
the west is falling into the way of styling her
is no newspaper myth. She exists, her num-
bers are increasing, and she is one of the most
characteristic types that the conditions of
American life have evolved She is the modern
independent woman, but with difference
She does not stand on her own feet like the
New York woman, because she feels her in
fluence in society, nor like the New England
woman, because she has been taught to think
for herself, but because, like all frontiersmen,
she has been forced to act for herself, and with
true western grit she does it well. She knows
how to make for her children homestead
and heritage. Occasionally she knows what
few self supporting women have yet learned,
how to make money not only TO live on but
to grow rich on, as men and rich men count
wealth nowadays.
There are women all over the west,n Mr..
Roosevelt said the other day, ''who have
come to be as thoroughly capable of manag-
ing their affairs for themselves as if they were
the sbrewdest of men. Fortitude and patience
we always look for in woman, but cool
bravery and business talent are the qualities
that sometimes come out strongest when she
finds herself facing a rude civilization and
left to shift for herself as best she can.
Life on the ranch is certainly rough for
woman. There is no call to pity pioneer of
the other sex, for if he has the right stuff in
him 1t won't hurt him to buckle right down
to the bone, and then he can't but succeed.
But for woman, to an easterner at least, it
seems different And yet, SO far as one can
see, they like it, good many of them, and it
brings out the best that is in them. They are
not all angels by any means, and woman
desperate is sometimes quite as much to be
feared as the worst of the men. There was
one down in Arizona whom the ranchmen tell
tales of yet, and with something like pride in
her exploits, too, who killed, so they say
twenty-five men with her own hands. She
was hard rider and crack shot, so that it
was decidedly risky to be covered by her rifle
But that same pluck and courage that she
showed, turned into more peaceful channels,
makes splendid success of some of the ranch
women. The women who are managing
cattle ranges for themselves not helping their
husbands gain footing, which is sometimes
about as hard, come from all social ranks
and have drifted into the business don't
know what proportion of them have deliber
ately chosen tin all sorts of ways. Some
of them are Texans, who were almost Graded
with cattle, and to whom running a mower,
feeding stock, breaking wild horses, or doing
any sort of work about a ranch Is so much d
matter of education and habit that it seems
as much their natural occupation as taking
in sewing to a notable housewife left a widow
i'll an eastern village They take hold clev-
erly with their husbands if they marry; they
strike out for themselves on a small scale,
which sometimes grows to larger one, if
they don't
"Other ranch women, especially in Dakota,
come from New England New York or the
states north of the Ohio. There are school
teachers among them, who have concluded TO
train something that may possibly shoot more
proftably than the unfruitful Young idea
Most of them went west, in the first place,
with their husbands, to see what could be
d'iic III IL 1tuhti anu Nbtli llldI VI
the family died or broke down, the wife,
rather than sacrifice the foothold already
gained, stayed on, learned by experience,
bought her knowledge pretty dearly some
times, failed utterly perhaps, if the winters
were bad or fire swept her buildings; sue
ceeded more probably, kept her stock in good
| shape, added to their numbers and came out
ahead little every year. 1t is no joke to
| succeed in Dakota III cattle raising OF tree
| planting or wheat farming, but women can
| and do make money in all three Success is
| graded, of course, as elsewhere. The women
ranchers whom | know personally-and that
| is no very large number-are not In the busi-
ness on large scale. Some of them are not
ranching as eastern people, with thes ideas
| of the bigness of western operations, inter
| pret the word at all They have no more
| than six or ten cattle, perhaps, and from that
| the number viii run up to twenty-five or
| fifty head, but they are an energetic and
business like set of women, who are working
industriously in the day of small things, and
of course with some, though perhaps with no
large number of others, the day of large
things has already come.
How the ranch woman. whose business en-
|
| sometimes makes her start from the east is
illustrated in the case of a New York board
ing house keeper, who is working at both
ends of the line just now. Keeping boardsrs
is one of the most wearisome and discourag
ing ways i'll which woman earns living
But when she can keep $50 of them the case
is different indeed This energetic woman
had laid by money enough some three or -four
years ago to take up land in Dakota and
stock on small scale a cattle range Sinct
that time her cattle have thriven and heI
boarding has prospered. With the profits Of
the latter she has increased the number anC
| improved the breed of the former, and il
looking forward to the day, not very far dis
tant, when her western venture shall be vel
started and under such promising headway
that she need heed no longer the complaints o.
the parlor floor lodger whose egg is always
minute too hard or ten seconds too soft, but
can put up her Gotham shutters and settl,
herself to grow up with the country in th,
free and bounding west, where her hand nee,
practice its cunning in the mixing of haSI
no more.-New York Mail and Express In
terview